Prolific Machines

Aug 29, 2023

Mayfield | Aug 29, 2023 Dream boldly, and move with purpose Founders can sometimes feel pressure to “underreach” with their ideas, sacrificing ambition for accessibility and immediate term business viability. While it’s a good instinct to show your product is feasible, you shouldn’t hamstring a grand idea to fit it into the limitations of today’s means and technology. “We want to produce cultured meat at a price point that competes with factory farming, and that requires creating a fundamentally new approach. If we can do that, then a lot of things that are currently impossible become possible.” DENIZ KENT Co-founder & CEO, Prolific Machines Ambition is valuable, but how do you differentiate your idea as a serious contender to fundamentally change your industry, or indeed the world? Beyond telling a stellar product story, you must showcase your sweat equity. If your idea is a breakthrough away from feasibility, then know the failure modes in your sleep. Talk to leaders in the field and hire them. Demonstrate mastery over your technical challenge, build the right product and get customers involved at the very beginning. Then you’re ready to disrupt industries. “I want people to come to me with unique insights into keystone problems that can change the world, if solved,” says Arvind Gupta, who led Mayfield’s inception stage investment in Prolific Machines. “For me, backing something truly game-changing is an opportunity to contribute long-term to humanity. As a founder, be prepared for a long, unpredictable road. When things look great, stuff will go wrong. Likewise, as hope may be dwindling, perseverance creates opportunity. Excellence in every dimension is what it takes to change history. Only when people see that will they start to believe.” ARVIND GUPTA The Voice of the CIO – Insights on Generative AI Adoption in the Enterprise We recently hosted a number of local CIOs here at our offices to chat a bit about where we're at with generative AI, and when it ... Viewpoint | Aug 9 2023 Generative AI – The Enterprise Primer For our latest CXO Insight Call: "Generative AI with Google – The Enterprise Primer," we were joined by Josh Gwyther, Global Generative AI Lead for Google, ... Viewpoint | Aug 9 2023 5 Questions Investors Should be Asking Inception-stage Generative AI Founders | TechCrunch+ We believe that we are at the dawn of the generative AI era, similar to the prior PC, web, mobile and cloud eras, which represents a sea ... Podcast | Aug 3 2023 Deepak Seth, Product Director – Trading Architecture Platform Strategy & Support, Charles Schwab Today we welcome Deepak Seth, a Technology, Innovation and Digital Transformation expert, a deep thinker and a futurist who has handled diverse and progressively increasing responsibilities ... Viewpoint | Aug 1 2023 Founding Voices: The Road is Longer Than You Think Originally part of our Founding Voices newsletter series. Read more insights here. The road is longer than you think In startup culture there’s plenty of talk ... News | Jul 20 2023 Mayfield Announces $250 Million AI Start Seed Fund and Adds New Partner Mayfield, a top-tier early-stage venture capital firm, today announced the $250 million AI Start, the first seed fund in its history, to partner with AI-first founders ... News | Jul 20 2023 Mayfield Launches New $250 Million AI-Specific Seed Stage Fund Longtime venture capital firm Mayfield Fund is launching a new investment vehicle specifically to back artificial intelligence startups. News | Jul 20 2023 Announcing The $250 Million Mayfield AI Start Seed Fund Today we are announcing the $250 million Mayfield AI Start, our first seed fund, out of which we will invest in AI-first founders starting at Day ... Podcast | Jul 19 2023 Geeta Pyne, Chief Enterprise Architect of the Intuit Platform at Intuit Today we welcome Geeta Pyne, Chief Enterprise Architect of the Intuit Platform at Intuit to our CXO of the Future Podcast (“The Three Questions” edition). She ...